Is there a cheap/older router that supports PIM DM?

Hello.

I'm looking to purchase a router that supports PIM DM multicasting. The 3Com NBX IP telephony system uses mutlicasting for certain features, and the routers must support PIM DM multicasting.

Does DD-WRT support this? Are there inexpensive routers out there that I can deploy? I imagine the old 3Com 5012 or 3026 will do the job, but I'm looking for something more "consumer grade" (like netopia or dd-wrt).

Not aware of any consumer grade router that will do multicast routing, let alone PIM-DM. The 3Com 5012, etc does support. You could potentially find one on an auction site. Not sure how many you need etc. though. Another alternative would be, if you have some old PC hardware, to use a Linux distro as a multicast router. I've seen this done where someone has a consumer grade router with VPN connection back to office and they use a Linux box as the multicasr router.

Also - the multicast is only required for certain features like time updates, button lighting, conference calls etc. In later versions of NBX code you could set some of these features to use unicast I believe.

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PantzAuthor Commented: 2011-03-06

Wasn't aware of the unicast option in later versions... I got out of "full time" NBX back in 2006. I missed all the hoopla and hilarity surrounding the NBX's limited support of SIP as well. Thanks for the tip. Good information... Any idea on which Linux distro would serve as a decent multicast PIM-DM system? I know that Vyatta doesn't support... Would an older router like the Cisco 1700/2600 do the job? I only need two to start... one for the office and one to test...

I've removed VPNs from my deployment. All NBX hardware is assigned public addressing, and port forwarding is enabled at the remote sites. I guess I would need a PIM-DM capable router at each remote phone to support conference calling. Currently using the NBX multicast application to handle date/time updates, line appearances, etc.

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